Minucius Felix, Octavius (1903) - Page 26

t double

24, 20 Bryttania (Britannia); 5, 22; 32, 9 littera letter (21, 7 inliteratus illiterate)

ti instead of ci

50, 10 (20, 11) convitium reproach; 10, 21 solatium consolation

v instead of b

41, 14 civus citizen; 35, 8 inbarvis beardless; 21, 5 Iuva Jove; 42, 18 laves slips/faults (20, 12 labes); 23, 25 lavor I labor (otherwise labor); 13, 12 livido lust (otherwise libido); 21, 5 provatus approved (otherwise probo); 40, 13 Teverinus (Tiberinus); 44, 16 vacchor I rave; 49, 18 Vellona; 55, 21 velua monster

x added

11, 23 lucifugax light-shunning

x instead of s

38, 24 texta woven.

It seems superfluous to me to argue about those places where I have followed conjectures approved by previous editors. I examined these diligently before I thought they should be received into the text, and I always rejected them unless the error in the writing was manifest and was removed by the proposed change. I have never changed anything in the text in order to offer some sort of Tullian meaning: Cicero-like coloring, nor if I judged that something could have been said more elegantly by the author. I admitted no other reason for correcting anything, unless something clearly abhorred the Latin diction, not that of Cicero, but of the age in which Minucius wrote his Octavius, or if the sentence required either a change, a transposition, a supplement, or the removal of some letter, syllable, or one or more words.

Let it therefore suffice at this place to explain as briefly as I can for what reasons I have departed from the Paris manuscript, in which places, and why I have departed from the opinion of learned men who have deserved well regarding the restoration of the words, or why I have rejected an emendation commonly approved. In this I agree with J. J. Cornelissen, who edited the Octavius at Leiden in 1882 (whose critical art I, along with most others, disapprove), that the more clearly the error in the writing is removed by the proposed change, the fewer words are needed for it to be commended to the judgment of the readers.